EDGE to spend $350,000 to identify job creation strategies for Memphis, Shelby County

Branding the Memphis area — remember "America's Distribution Center" or "Memphis: America's Aerotropolis"? — may not be a big strategy produced by the upcoming, $350,000 study for economic development.

"This may not be that pretty," Mayor A C Wharton said of the new analysis to be funded through the Economic Development Growth Engine (EDGE) board. "Just an old-fashioned economic analysis is what this is going to be."

But Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell wants the study also to attack any specific weaknesses to make Shelby County more competitive with DeSoto and other Mississippi counties.

"I've asked them to look at the incentive packages we have to offer," Luttrell said. "What are the thresholds that must be met to qualify for PILOTS (tax breaks called payments in lieu of taxes)? Are those reasonable thresholds? Do they need to be loosened or tightened? See if it's a fair incentive package compared to neighboring states.

"Is the process to apply for incentives streamlined?" Luttrell said. "Some of the things I hear is that Mississippi has a much simpler process for seeking incentives. I want us to look and see if they do indeed have a simpler procedure and see if that's why Mississippi is beating us on some of the big deals."

Much is at stake for a county where the unemployment rate is 9.7 percent and where one in five residents live below the poverty level.

Wharton has read Chicago's new study, "A Plan for Economic Growth and Jobs," which produced 10 strategies for that city. It eschewed superficial strategies like "one-time tax incentives, broad-based branding efforts, or competitive 'smokestack chasing.'"

For Memphis, Wharton emphasized, a key is identifying the city's unique assets and building on them.

"I talk so much about the river and our access to the river. Same thing about our airport with its facilities. Same thing about our untapped labor pool here. Our weather. And our central location ...

"And then matching that up with where there are unmet opportunities and needs for what we are doing."

Wharton embraces the hiring of outside consultants to help with the economic development study. "They discover things you stumbled over or have taken for granted," he said.

He anticipates the analysis taking a year to complete once work has started.

The $350,000 will come from the budget of the Economic Development Growth Engine (EDGE), and the work will be led by EDGE's president, Reid Dulberger. Dulberger, who also is the chief economic development officer for Memphis and Shelby County, was unavailable for comment.

But EDGE board chairman Al Bright said he expects the new study to produce a document that doesn't just sit on a shelf. He envisions a working document "we're able to use as we look for opportunities within the community, both Memphis and Shelby County. ... We're in this together."

Wharton expects the unexpected. He's read that Chicago started its analysis assuming much more weight would be given to the city's manufacturing. "They said, 'Wait a minute. We are a (corporate) headquarters city. Have we fine-tuned our education programs, our college programs to produce headquarters-type employees as opposed to industrial employees?'"

That's not to say Memphis won't still leverage its resources in logistics. "But we want to look at all other areas we perhaps have not developed as fully as we should have," he said.

The study must be regional in scope because no city's economy is independent, Wharton indicated.

The Growth Alliance, which represents all of Memphis and Shelby County's municipalities and Chambers of Commerce as well as industry, will participate in creating the document. "It will be heavily democratic in terms of gaining input from all sectors of our economy," Wharton said.

The Growth Alliance was established to help set economic development priorities while the new EDGE agency and board are charged to make it easier for new and expanding employers to do business in Memphis and Shelby County.

"We consider those to be the people who have a better sense of what the economic climate is than we do," Luttrell said of the Growth Alliance. "We look forward to them bringing forward what they consider to be their priorities."

The Growth Alliance is an advisory board; Luttrell and Wharton ultimately will be responsible for setting the priorities.